Tom Burrows never thought of it that way, but he is one of the leaves dangling from the Greatest Generation's mighty and enduring oak.

Sitting on the small covered deck at the rear of the cottage he built mostly with his own hands, in the early 1950s on the shore of Prince Cove, Burrows, at 81, reflects: "I've been very lucky. I lived the American Dream."

From the deck, one views a manicured lawn sloping gently toward the pebbled shore and the peaceful waters that evoke memories of a simpler time -- of solitude, of naturally abundant fish and shellfish, of ice-skating in the nearby bog, of children, of the joys and challenges of family and labor, of a time when there might be just two work boats in the entire cove and fish jumped out at you.

Today, the waters are a "dead sea," Burrows says with acquiescence to changing times. Abutting his property is the town-owned Prince Cove Marina, with its gravel driveway, multiple piers, recreational vessels and assorted moorings.

Burrows isn't put off by this neighbor. He was there before it was, he said, and he can enjoy the increased activity while still lamenting the loss of a time gone by.

He participates in the new order by membership in the Barnstable Association of Recreational Shellfishermen helping the town propagate shellfish, chatting with marina personnel and visitors and enjoying the waterfront with his grandchildren who visit on weekends.

The neat cottage flanked by modest add-ons at both ends, and the unassuming gentleman seated in its shade, harbor a story whose conclusion may not be as idyllic as the tale they tell.

He points over the cove waters to the shore of Baxter's Neck where so-called trophy houses have proliferated over the years. You can see parts of them through the trees.

"The big houses are coming this way," Burrows said. "The house next door just sold for $2 million. The taxes, expenses are getting too high for people on a limited income. I never made a lot of money."

He pauses, then adds wistfully, "I don't know how much longer I can stay" -- a concern raised by other Cape Codders in similar situations.

Burrows, like many other elderly on the Cape, is a potential victim of rising property values that place a particular premium on the dwindling availability of waterfront land. But it wasn't always that way. The lot upon which this Quincy native built the house for his bride-to-be, Marstons Mills native Molly Pierce, was affordable and sustainable for the wage earner when he bought it from an uncle.

Burrows was a child of The Great Depression, a sailor in The Great War and a worker bee in the great social progression spawned by the war. He described his family and others he knew as "dirt poor" during the Depression. "The war came along and everything changed," he said.

"I was in vocational high school when the war began and the Fore River shipyard was always crying for guys from the schools to work there," he remembered, "even before they graduated. The students knew just enough to be dangerous. My father was a machinist there so I was expected to be one. That's how it was then. He was making $25 a week at the yard until it landed a defense contract and he earned $100. He was so happy that week.

"My parents told me to stay in school -- that I'd have to work the rest of my life." He chuckles. "I didn't know how true that was."

Then there was that intangible thing called patriotism, and young men were expected to contribute. "I saw a Navy ad in the Patriot-Ledger that said we could sign up at 16 and leave when we were 17. It took a lot of talking to get my mother to sign the paper. I had to promise I would go back to school when it was over."

He wanted to work with planes, but the Navy sent him to Diesel School in Redmond, Va.

"You know how the Navy hands out assignments by the alphabet. Well, after graduation I hit it lucky. A, B, C and D from my class were assigned to a new class of ship -- the destroyer escort." That was in 1943.

For the next several years, Burrows spent his teen life in the sweltering engine room protecting the somber convoys crossing the North Atlantic from the Nazi submarine wolf packs, battling weather and anxiety.

"There were so many ships in the convoys it was unbelievable. You could see the lines stretch out all the way to the horizon," Burrows recaled. His ship, the U.S.S. Brister, DE-327, helped convoys deliver for D-Day, then in the Mediterranean when the African front progressed to Italy. Burrows stays in touch with shipmates through e-mails and membership in the DE association. "I used to go to all the reunions, but not now," he said.

"When it was over (in Europe), we returned to Brooklyn. I went on leave and when I came back, they had painted the ship a different color. We were ordered to join a carrier group in Hawaii, via the Panama Canal, to prepare for the invasion of Japan.

"Then we hedge-hopped across the Pacific and were off Bataan when we learned about the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The average guy didn't know about that, about the big picture. We just did our jobs. Then they dropped the other bomb on Nagasaki and it was over, just like that."

His ship went to Formosa to help liberate a prison camp and during a few other assignments encountered a Pacific typhoon. "I always thought the North Atlantic was bad, but I'll tell you, that Pacific is something else. I don't know how we survived that storm."

The Navy life had grown on him ("I was still a kid. It was all I knew at the time.") and when he was discharged he remained in the reserves. True to his word to his mother, Burrows returned to school and spent a lot of time on the Cape visiting relatives, one of whom talked him into staying to become a mason.

He had met Molly Pierce in the meantime, so the decision was easy. She was from an established Marstons Mills family, he says. He would remain, buy land, build a house and he and Molly would get married and raise a family. "I guess that was the American Dream," he said.

They had started on the house when the Korean War broke out in 1950 and he was called to active duty, this time in the Marines. "I was lucky again being stationed at Cherry Point, (North Carolina). I came home on leave and Molly and I were married. I talked her into coming down to the base to live. Then we took a Christmas leave home and when I got back, they sent me home for good because they didn't need the reserves anymore."

The house was built, and expanded as the children, Jeanne, now of Sandwich; Joan of Maryland and Jane of Hyannis, arrived. "At one point I hurt my back and had to get a different job. So I worked for Guertin Brothers jewelers making mothers' rings for six years, then back to masonry.

"But this house, this place, was such a wonderful place to raise children. You know, I don't think I ever bought a fish. We had everything - quahogs, blues, stripers, scallops, oysters and we just about lived on that. We could skate on the bogs. It was good for the children."

Surviving economically was at times difficult, requiring several jobs, commercial shellfishing or being a cook. "I just did whatever I had to do," Burrows said matter-of-factly. Raising the children, particularly during their teens, was challenging, he says.

Burrows may worry a bit about the future, but he dwells happily on the past: "I was lucky in many ways. I put myself in harm's way and survived. I married a good woman and the kids turned out all right. As to the death of the Cove, well, I guess we're all guilty."

He rests an elbow on the chair arm, and cups his chin in his hand, looking out wistfully at the cove, and sighs: "Yeah, I was lucky," he murmured, as though to himself. "I lived the American Dream."